Cautionary Tales For Children
Wonderful witty poems great for reading to your children. The stories and rhymes will stay with them for the rest of their lives.

Research has shown how important YOU are to your children and how as a dad the things you do, and keep on doing, really count, whether you live with them, or you are a single dad and are only able see them once a month, once a week or more, what you do really matters. This site is dedicated to all dads but will be of special relevance to the single dad. Remember, you are half the reason your children exist and they need you whether you live with them or not. As their dad, you have what it takes to make their lives successful and fulfilling no matter how often you see them. This site is about all the positive things that we as parents have to offer our children.

Lumos Wand

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Make your own truly magical wizard’s wand

Do you believe in magic? A famous writer (Isaac Asimov) once said that technology sufficiently ahead of ours would look just like magic. Or maybe it’s just that magic is only a natural force that science hasn’t quite got round to explaining yet. Whatever you think, with this fun project, a little bit of science and sprinkle of your own charm you can make a truly magical wand. This project will give you the instructions a wand, that with a well practised swish and flick will let you read writing and look at drawings that, before you cast your spell, no muggle or even wizard eye can see. . . .
Once you have made the Magical Wand you’ll be charming, “Lumos” at every opportunity, and successfully telling maps and sheets of seemingly blank paper to “Reveal Their Secrets”, just like Professor Snape in the Prisoner of Azkaban, when he is trying in vain to see what is on Harry’s Marauder’s Map in the middle of the night.. . .
You don’t need to be a wizard to make a truly Magical Wand. All you’ll need is a UV LED at its tip, which can be turned on by a secret switch in the grip area, so that you can “reveal” words and pictures written and drawn with a UV ink security marker. Draw a Marauder’s Map that only you can read with your wand, or write secret messages and spells you don’t want anyone else to read, and then reveal them with your Magical Lumos Wand.. . .
You don’t need a wizards supply shop either. In the muggle world, we have to rely on science to provide our magic, so you will need an Ultra Violet (UV) security marker pen and key-ring LED light kit. You can buy UV marker and LED kits very cheaply from most big department stores or online from a range of different places, but the cheapest I have found is from a fly fishing supplier, which you can see following this link Secret Invisible Ink Pen With Uv Light Keyring .. You’ll also need a small 6 volt battery (ideally 4LR44, or equivalent camera battery). Again Amazon has links to the cheapest GP 4LR44 High Power 6V battery, and you’ll need a couple of short pieces of thin insulated wire. . . .
The project requires a small amount of soldering, so care should be taken as soldering irons get very hot and will cause serious burns if mishandled. However, with the correct amount of supervision, this project is ideal for an electronics beginner as it requires only the most basic knowledge of electronics and only has four solder joints and is the very simplest of circuits.
Have a go at making your own switch from two paper-clips; this project explains how. Here you can see the switch hidden by a gilded glue gun blob.. . .
Once you have made the structure of the wand from the instructions on this page, you will need to finish, paint and distress it. Instructions on how to do this can be found on the instruction sheet for standard Wizard’s Wands, which you might like to try making instead, if you don’t fancy soldering.. . .
While making your wand, check and re-check the function of the solder joins at every step by touching them together or to the battery to light the LED. It would be a pity to finish your wand and find that it did not work because at some point in the making process one of the wires’ solder joints broke.

The download comes in both US Letter size and A4 and includes all the instructions you’ll need to make a Magical Lumos Wand.

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We can't wait to see the pictures of what you’ve made. Kids love it when the things you made together are published, so go on upload a picture of what you made. It's easy, just go to your dadcando My Page and upload your pictures into this project and we'll put one of them right here in the project picture gallery.

To give you the higest quality and the shortest download time, most of our downloads are supplied in Adobe PDF format for your convenience. Adobe Reader is standard on most computers, but if you do not have it, you can get the most up to date version free from Adobe, here.

Your downloaded projects

Posted by nadir187 - This is my lad with his recently created wand - getting very good at "Expeliarmus" !!

Posted by luppie05 - made a wand holder from an old clock! The box is still to come.

Posted by yoyomax12 - I had never soldered before, but it was very easy to do! This turned out very well and the wand is bright enough to use as a flashlight!

Posted by scintnl - My son with his first lumos wand. LED comes from a keyring. It is not UV though

Posted by tristanzdad - This is my son's first wand. We used phosphorescent paint for the design so it glows in the dark (the more coats you use, the better it glows).
He plays with this more than his store-bought Harry Potter wand.

Posted by serafeena - Many thanks for that terribly wonderful idea and instruction - I love alle the magic things here - your site is very inspiring! kind regards from germany :-)

Posted by bjohnson - Love this project!
I teach a Harry Potter summer camp and the kids loved it, too!

Posted by Nyunyu - I had some problems to do, I used a little more technical tricks to make my wand of light, but the instructions helped me a lot, thanks to all!

Posted by jolovesvlad - This is the wand I helped my neighbor girl make for her brother as a Christmas present. We used a dollar store book light and a lipstick tube (as the switch) There is also a blue "gem" on the handle. Thank you so much for the idea and inspiration.

Posted by tinytreasures - We made these with our kiddos. We used femo for some of the shapes and baked them right onto the paper. We also coated them with a epoxy resin for strength and shine.

Posted by Madinah - These r my favorite wands. The handle of the light blue one also detatches to reveal a pen.

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Wizardry and Magic

Harry Potter is all done. Of course there are rumours of an eighth book and the fact that we still have two films to go (as the last film will be split into two). It's going to be a long summer, but November will come round soon enough and the bitter sweet joy of seeing another HP film will be tempered by the fact that there is definitely only one more after that. Nevertheless, while you wait, there’s always more than enough magic in the air for you to recreate events at Hogwarts, the Burrow or the Ministry of Magic, by making your own models of Hogwarts wizarding paraphernalia.
Homemade wizard’s wands, Golden Snitches, or beautiful writing quills and loads of other Potteresk things are all here, ready for you to download on dadcando.

Even if you’re just a muggle and have had enough of Harry Potter, there are plenty of other magical fantasy stories to keep you interested in the Magical Art of Making. All the Chronicles of Narnia are all being turned into films, as are the stories of Lyra in the books of His Dark Materials trilogy. Whenever we see interesting things in these films and stories, we will bring you them as best magical fantasy craft projects, so that you can turn your hand to making magic, and conjuring up some really cool stuff to amaze your friends.

Now you can make your very own Victorian Domed glass display case, from a 2 litre soda bottle, to display all your favourite projects and artifacts really beautifully. With our simple instructions, the results of just an afternoon's making will be really cool, good enough to be film props in fact, and better than anything you can buy, because you made it yourself.

Or why not make a beautiful writing quill from either a hippogryph, phoenix or snowy owl feather . And because no quill would be complete without its own ink pot, there are also some easy to follow instructions and printables, for making the most fantastical, magical Ink-pots.

Featured Project

MicroCards
MicroCards are
miniature playing cards that can be printed out on one sheet of paper.
Just cut them out and play on the go!